


Photograph

by devils_trap



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: FATHER SON STUFF IN SHERIFF'S POV, Gen, Sheriff Sheriff Sheriff, Sheriff wanting to protect Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 20:19:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devils_trap/pseuds/devils_trap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the taxing hallucination at Lydia's party, Stiles cracks. Sheriff is there to pick up the pieces, despite not knowing the one to shatter his son was none other than himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photograph

Mr. Stilinski hadn't even heard him come in the house. He had just left his room to fix himself something to eat—god when had it gotten so late—when he passed Stiles's room and was hit with the need to be close to his son again. Sit among his things and remember when things weren't always going so horribly wrong. Try his best to pass on the love and affection he had for Stiles through osmosis since god knew their attempts to show it weren't really getting through.

Stiles was usually so loud and talkative the moment he entered the house. All loud, smiling face and flailing limbs that he hadn't quite grown into yet. Most of the time, Stiles talked to himself when he entered a building just so it wouldn't be so quiet. He'd been doing that since his mother passed.

He’d told his father once in one of their rare father-son talks—they're so rare that it makes Mr. Stilinski upset, but he was never good at the sentimental little talks, that was always his wife's job and she was so good at it, and always made things right with her company—that Stiles didn't like the quiet. Didn't like being quiet. Because the hospital his mother died in had been horribly quiet and her body had been horribly quiet and if he didn't talk, the quiet would get him. If he didn't get every single inane idea out of his head, they’d eat him alive, because his thoughts weren't quiet. They were  _hell_  and everything was so loud, and all he could think about was how he couldn't find a way to save her.

But Stiles was sitting on his bed with his legs crossed in the soft flaxen glow of his bedside lamp, not out and about with his friends like his father had thought. In his hands was a picture frame. The back of it rattled every few seconds as Stiles's entire body trembled. His big brown eyes hadn't left the floor and he was barely breathing.

Mr. Stilinski was so suddenly frightened; he couldn’t remember how to deal with a panic attack, and this was definitely looking like it was one. It'd been years since Stiles had had one. Wasn't that something a father should remember? God, he hoped muscle memory kicked in and he could help his son through it if it came to a full-fledged attack.

"You...you okay, sport?" When he's met with nothing, Mr. Stilinski stands in the doorway, hairs away from his own panic attack. He had hardly kept it together when Stiles's mother died, and he had to stroke Stiles's hair, get his son to match his breathing, and tell him, "Just breathe, I've got you, I've got you.” He’d do it until his son would loosen the grip on his father's shirt and breathe freely once again, and he’d done it several times the years following her death.

It made him feel powerless. And angry. Powerless because he hadn’t been able to save her, because he couldn’t spare Stiles loss, because he had loved her so fiercely and she was _gone_. Angry because she was gone, and Stiles wouldn’t get to see her, wouldn’t grow up having a mother when every child should. Angry because people stroked his back and said, “My condolences. God works in mysterious and sometimes upsetting ways,” and his response to that was supposed to be gratitude and not the outrage that bubbled up inside of him.

He didn't know if he could survive the world crashing around him like that again.

"Stiles...Stiles?" He slowly made his way across the bedroom floor, his hands up, palm fist, like Stiles isn't his son but a wild animal about to snap. Stiles's eyes still haven't left the floor, but his shoulders have grown tense. The frame has stopped shaking, mainly because Stiles was digging into the frame so hard he'd actually broken the glass.

Mr. Stilinski was kneeling in front of him in a second. "Stiles, what are you—Stiles, look at me, ok? C'mon, buddy, look at me, what's wrong?" Slowly, so very slowly, he uncurled Stiles's fingers from the broken frame and placed it on the floor. Stiles's palm was lazily filling with blood, dark maroon in the pale moonlight shining in through the window. Stiles still hasn't looked up yet, but from this angle he could see Stiles's eyes anyway, and his breath caught in his throat. Stiles's eyes were filled with the tears he hadn't shed since his mother passed. They look so haunted and pained and empty that it made Mr. Stilinski physically ache.

He was going to kill whoever did this to his son, sheriff or not. 

"Stiles, god, okay, god there's a lot of blood—Stiles, son? Stiles, c'mon now, we have to get you to the bathroom, let's clean this up." Stiles was essentially dead weight, but he managed to wrangle his son up and into the main bathroom.

He sat Stiles down on the side of the tub and fished a first aid kit out of the bottom cabinet. Small, square piece of peroxide-soaked gauze in hand, he began cleaning out the cuts. He was still silent, eyes still down, and Mr. Stilinski was fuming as he wrapped gauze around his son's hand. 

He was going to kill whoever did this.

"Stiles, Stiles talk to me, please? What's wrong? You're scaring me."

“I coul—I’m sorry, daddy, I’m _sorry_.”

“Sorry? Stiles, sorry for what? You haven’t done anything, son, everything’s fine.”

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Stiles whispered, and his eyes finally—finally—flicker up to meet his father's. He gripped his father's wrist and squeezed as he began repeating the words, like a broken record in a haunted house. He was crying then, the tears cascading down his face, soaking both of their shirts.

Murder.

He was going to commit murder.

Whoever did this wasn't going to live long enough to even attempt to apologize, he was going to kill them and it wasn’t going to be pretty. No jury would convict him after seeing the haunted look in Stiles’ eyes, the quiet desperation burning like a fire in his eyes.

They stay there, Stiles's head on Mr. Stilinski's shoulder, until Stiles stopped crying. He was making soft, punched-out noises as his father led back to bed, this time carrying a little of his own weight. Together they manage to remove his shoes, socks, and jeans and tuck him into bed. Mr. Stilinski kissed him on his forehead and cheek, and squeezed his shoulder with his right hand. 

Stiles continued whining even after he'd fallen asleep, his face still etched in haunted agony.

Mr. Stilinski sunk to the floor in front of his son's bed. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep, not chance in hell. He runs his fingers through his hair and wished his wife was there. Wished Stiles was young enough to still believe that his parents could fix anything. Wished he wasn't alone because raising a child on your own was hard.

And, fuck, he missed his wife.

He picked up the picture on the floor, realizing he never really got a look at it; too concerned with Stiles's bleeding hands.

In the frame, obscured by drying blood, was a picture of the three of them. The last picture they ever took together.

That time, the punched-out noise comes from his own mouth.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally from my [Tumblr](http://devils-trap.tumblr.com/post/27944969116/mr-stilinski-hadnt-even-heard-him-come-in-the), but tweaked and edited for AO3!


End file.
